


Remedial Teamwork

by DawningStar



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine - Silver Queen
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:02:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21707161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawningStar/pseuds/DawningStar
Summary: Crow tries to teach an important life lesson.  It’s a shame Cat is the only one conscious to hear it.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Yamato | Tenzou, Hyuuga Amano | ANBU Crow (DoS) & Hatake Kakashi (DoS), Hyuuga Amano | ANBU Crow (DoS) & Tenzou (DoS)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 150
Collections: Dreaming of Sunshine Exchange 2019 B, Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection





	Remedial Teamwork

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pepperdoken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pepperdoken/gifts).
  * Inspired by [from an unlikely source](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18875119) by [wafflelate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflelate/pseuds/wafflelate). 



This far outside the Land of Fire there are no proper trees to shield a squad of ANBU, just rocky hills that might hide their enemies. Even in full stealth they’d been taking a risk, and now one of them is in no shape to hide. 

With his Byakugan active, Crow can tell no one’s chasing his squad too closely yet. He inspects the limp unconscious form of Wolf, a shift of attention with no need to turn his head. 

Pale hair stained with blood dangles from Bird’s shoulder. Wolf’s chakra system looks as empty as usual. The flickers of Bird’s quick diagnostic and treatment work are professionally hidden but they stand out like lightning against the dimness of chakra exhaustion. 

Bird’s the best field medic Crow has seen in action, and she’s had to heal Wolf on the run all too many times. She doesn’t slow or falter, leaping along with her teammates. 

Behind her, Cat’s too quiet. 

The kid’s been answering anything Wolf says all mission, verbal reply to spoken prompt and sign for sign, but ever since Wolf overdid it and fainted like a tiny civilian, Cat barely responds and never initiates. 

With the Byakugan active it’s impossible not to notice the way Cat’s mask follows Wolf, the tension in his leap, the clench of white knuckles gripping no weapon. 

He knows Wolf calls the kid Tenzō, introduces the kid as Tenzō to everyone in ANBU headquarters with a level of stubborn repetition that’s all wrong for either a code name or an actual name. He knows the kid still twitches at the name the way he never twitches when called Cat. 

A boy from nowhere, skilled in the kind of combat mokuton no one had seen since the First Hokage’s death. Crow knows better than to ask any questions, but he doesn’t want the weight of the things he hasn’t asked about to drown either Wolf or Cat. 

At least for this mission someone had the sense to send Cat and Wolf out with a captain and squad familiar with Wolf’s usual tricks. 

_Done_ , Bird signals, a curt one-handed sign that might betray some frustration with her repeat patient. 

At the sign Cat flinches visibly, a level of reaction not much else has drawn. Crow frowns behind his mask. That will need discussion as soon as the situation permits. 

First a quick acknowledgement to Bird, then the order she probably expects, _Draw off pursuit. Be creative._ After the mess Wolf left, there will certainly be investigators. Being ahead for now doesn’t mean much. Bird has a real skill for subtle misdirection that Crow wishes Wolf would put more effort into learning. 

Bird transfers Wolf to Crow’s own shoulder with a smooth practiced maneuver and dashes away, all stealth procedures so high even Crow might overlook her presence. Wolf’s grown a little taller since they did this last but no heavier. 

_We go to ground,_ Crow signs to Cat, and waits a patient moment before Cat blinks away from Wolf’s helpless state and responds to the order. 

Trees are out of character for the area and the secret of mokuton much too important for Crow to risk exposing to Konoha’s enemies on such a commonplace mission, but they’ve talked this through before the mission. Cat’s not bad at earth jutsu, even when he has to be quiet about it. 

Crow ducks to bring Wolf inside the tiny cave. Probably just as well Wolf is unconscious for this part. Everyone’s noticed his feelings about caves. 

Standard ANBU seals to secure the makeshift camp against betraying sound and scent and moderate chakra use, and Crow can afford to pay attention to Cat. “Clear to speak,” he tells the kid. ANBU hand-signs are useful, but prone to misunderstandings, especially with a new squad member. 

Cat’s mask still points unerringly toward Wolf, not to Crow. Cat isn’t pulling enough chakra to be preparing any kind of attack, but he’s braced himself with it, a defensive reflex in most shinobi. 

“Don’t decommission Wolf-senpai,” Cat blurts out, and then flinches as though shocked at his own defiance. 

That makes the situation at once simple and infinitely more distressing. There are a lot of people who need to be argued or fought in the course of trying to keep Wolf alive, but Crow is nowhere on that list, unlike Wolf himself. 

“Please, Crow-taichō,” the kid says, as tense as though he expects his own captain to strike him just for asking. “I can carry him—” 

“I would never let Wolf die,” Crow interrupts before he has to hear more of the terrible attempt at bargaining with a teammate for a teammate’s life. Cat has a few good instincts, buried by whoever trained him. The fact that Wolf hasn’t managed to identify reliable allies for the kid before they all hit the strain of field conditions isn’t Cat’s fault. Wolf always has refused to admit that people might care whether he comes back alive. 

Cat goes silent, mask tilting in wary assessment. Maybe that was too strong a statement to convince him, given how obvious it is that someone told the kid to expect to be discarded. 

At least Cat doesn’t need any convincing about _Wolf_ ’s value — several points in the new kid’s favor. Crow moderates his tone to be a little more gentle, a little less flat denial of the entire concept that Wolf might die under his watch. “Bird and I have gone to a lot of trouble dragging Wolf back safe from all the other missions where he overused his chakra and fainted.” Context Wolf probably won’t ever give. “We won’t lose him on this one, I promise.” 

This is the easy part of the mission, the running and hiding part, and Wolf’s too unconscious to jump in front of any more jutsu. 

For a moment Cat doesn’t say anything. Then, soft and suspicious, “Why?” 

Orders had once been a part of the reason, but Crow can tell no such answer will make him an ally in Cat’s eyes. Orders can change. 

“ANBU fight on behalf of the village.” Crow searches for words to bridge the gap between him and a kid who expects his captain to get rid of an inconvenient comrade. “If Wolf died, the village would be...so much less, without him.” 

The Yondaime’s last living student, the grieving boy he entrusted to Crow, even for so short a time. A skilled shinobi who cares desperately whether or not every single teammate makes it back to Konoha. A brave young man, brilliant and heartbreakingly kind when he thinks no one is looking. 

Cat hasn’t moved, still tense, but his gaze shifts from Crow back to Wolf. “Yes,” he agrees under his breath, and flinches again, perhaps at what his voice reveals. The kid can’t have had very many people in his life who would risk themselves to protect him. 

Crow heaves a sigh, though long ANBU training makes it silent. “Wolf won’t admit any such thing. But if you want to keep Wolf alive, Bird and I are your allies. I’ll introduce you to a few more around the village when we get back.” 

If Wolf hasn’t already told Cat this kind of detail and wants him on his own team, Crow will have to make some things clear. After half a mission’s observation, Crow doesn’t think anyone could argue Cat out of fighting alongside Wolf, and so Cat needs to know he won’t be dealing with Wolf’s issues all by himself. 

One of Cat’s hands moves in a standard ANBU acknowledgement. Good enough for now. 

“Wolf’s all right,” Crow adds, searching for a level of reassurance he doesn’t often use among fellow ANBU. “He’s only out of chakra. Bird mended the rest, she’s a very good medic.” 

Cat turns a little too fast to look at Wolf’s stained armor again. “Out here?” he says, surprised into expressing his doubt. 

While it’s true that not everyone in Konoha embraced the concept of adding medical skills to frontline teams with quite Bird’s level of enthusiasm, Crow...tries not to draw conclusions about who exactly trained Cat. Conclusions are dangerous. Even suspicions are too dangerous to put into words. “If you’re going to go on any of Wolf’s missions, Bird will insist on teaching you,” Crow says instead. The kid deserves fair warning. 

After a startled moment Cat’s fingers shape a quick _confirm report?_

Crow obliges the kid with a high-certainty confirmation and makes a note to tell Bird to tone down her standard ANBU lecture. From the look of it Cat’s never had a chance in his life to undervalue the contributions of medics. 

Now that Crow’s as certain as it is possible to be under the circumstances that Cat has no intention or desire to harm Wolf, he’s a little more willing to let Cat share the burden. “I’m going to keep watch,” he tells Cat, “you can look after Wolf until it’s time to move.” 

His own sleeping bag is in a storage scroll stored in a pouch. Crow shakes it out, one-handed and deft after all the practice. He shifts Wolf off his shoulder at last, onto the waterproof surface of the bag. As long as Wolf is on top the blood won’t be hard to clean. 

Crow has long had a sneaking suspicion that being unconscious on mission makes up the vast majority of all the sleep Wolf ever gets. Since he can’t do anything to fix that, he tries to make the unconsciousness marginally more restful. “Just let me know if he seems to be in any distress,” he tells the kid, to give him an excuse to check Wolf’s health like he obviously wants. 

“Understood, Crow-taichō,” Cat says, crisp as a shinobi twice his age, and kneels by Wolf’s pale hair. 

Over time, Crow has found that shinobi react better if they don’t feel like they’re being watched. He angles his body and head away from Cat and Wolf, though with his Byakugan active to watch for trouble, Crow can hardly miss anything happening so close. 

He notices and analyzes the fine tremble in Cat’s fingers as he presses them gently against Wolf’s throat in search of a pulse; the slump of relief in the kid’s shoulders when he finds it strong; the quick curious glance up toward Crow when Cat confirms that Wolf’s no longer bleeding from what used to be a gash in his leg. 

Crow takes particular note of the subtle affection written all over Cat’s posture as Cat patiently wipes some of the blood out of Wolf’s hair and away from his face, the blank professionalism that returns to hands and posture the moment Cat finishes the task. 

Apparently now Crow has two teenagers to feel responsible for, skilled in the arts of death and ignorant of just about anything else. He shouldn’t be surprised that this is Wolf’s fault. 

He decides he needs to drop by the Uchiha compound to see Uzume as soon as he gets into Konoha. Asking Uzume for tips on teaching will be hilarious, and asking her mother Tokimi might actually be helpful. 

For right now, Crow watches and tries to condense some of the things Cat needs to hear into words that he hopes the kid won’t misunderstand. 

Most urgent of all, Crow can’t let Cat follow Wolf’s terrible example of self-destructiveness in the name of Konoha. He can’t think of any faster way to see Wolf crack apart than to let him lose someone else he’s already put so much effort into protecting. 

He waits until Cat loses some of his wary defensiveness, until the chakra isn’t flooding so high in his system, until the kid looks a little less like he’s bracing for a blow or a death. “Satisfied of Wolf’s good health?” he asks at last, only a trifle dry. He doesn’t want to spook the kid all over again. 

“Yes, Crow-taichō,” Cat murmurs. His hand stays curled under Wolf’s head — to alert them of any change, he would probably say, but Crow can only be glad the kid is getting some reassurance from the touch. 

“Good.” Crow doesn’t turn his mask toward the kid. This isn’t a moment for orders and commands, this is just conversation about a shared ally. “Wolf is unconscious because of chakra exhaustion. It usually lasts a day or two.” 

No visible reaction from Cat, even through the Byakugan, but he’s listening. 

“There’s a technique that can wake him sooner, a chakra transfer, but if Wolf exhausts all his chakra again so soon it takes more than a week’s recovery time. Bird and I decided years ago that we wouldn’t let him do that unless the team can’t escape the enemy without help.” They’d had to compromise between Wolf’s physical health and the way he’d react to sleeping through the death of his ANBU teammates. 

Cat’s masked gaze shifts, resting on Crow. The kid doesn’t put his query into words, but he hardly needs to. 

Crow lifts one shoulder in a weary half-shrug. “If you’re on his team, you should plan for this kind of thing every time the team enters full combat.” Not every mission. ANBU are supposed to be stealthy; sometimes even Wolf manages to pull it off. 

He knows Wolf never wants to admit that kind of weakness aloud, but it’s much too late to keep the entire ANBU gossip network and anyone any agent might report to from knowing about the pattern. If Wolf wanted them to be able to cover for his fainting habit, he should have taken Crow’s advice and done it less predictably. 

For a long moment Cat bends his head over Wolf, keeping his thoughts to himself. “He was trying to protect me,” Cat whispers at last, a confession. 

Crow had seen it. In battle, Crow sees everything most of the time, and remembers best the things he’s too far away to help with. “You were trying to protect him, but he was faster than you expected.” 

Cat swallows hard and nods once. 

“Wolf is...very good at seeing when a teammate is in danger,” Crow informs him, tone grim with too many close calls. “He always intervenes, regardless of mission goals or his own health.” That’s half of what makes the boy so infuriating. 

“Always?” Cat asks, sounding a little daunted. 

Crow can’t blame him. _Ninety percent and higher_ , he confirms by sign and lets out a breath. “If you’re going to be his teammate longer than one mission, I need to teach you some tactics that will let you fight without putting yourself in danger. If you want to protect Wolf, first of all you need to guard your own life.” 

“Yes, Crow-taichō,” Cat answers reflexively, but his hand under Wolf’s head shifts a little. 

There’s a quirk of irony in his glance that Crow can only sympathize with. He snorts. “If you’re thinking that I ought to be giving this lesson to Wolf, let me assure you that I have and I will. Unfortunately for all of us, the chance he’ll pay attention to it is not very high.” 

He automatically pairs that statement with the more precise hand signs for _estimate ten percent._

The time has just about come for his monthly attempt to talk Wolf into taking better care of himself, and Crow wonders if Cat’s presence might improve the odds just a little. It’s obvious Cat will blame himself for anything that goes wrong. Maybe pointing that out will curb some fraction of Wolf’s reckless behavior where nothing else ever has. 

Maybe not. But Cat at least seems like a competent shinobi whose issues don’t keep him from caring about Wolf. 

After the crushing losses of the Kyuubi attack, no one cared about Crow’s opinion when they assigned Wolf his own ANBU team. Cat hasn’t got the skills to keep Wolf alive, but he looks eager to learn. Crow needs all the hope he can scrape up. 

“I think you’d be an acceptable teammate for Wolf, with that training,” Crow tells Cat in full honesty. “But I want to remind you that you don’t have to be. We could find you a different team.” 

Cat shakes his head. “I want to stay with Wolf, Crow-taichō, whatever training I need.” 

Stubborn as Wolf already. Crow can only hope that’s a good thing. “We can start now.” 

They don’t need sparring room for lectures on team tactics, though it’ll take weeks for Cat to rewire his priorities to be more team-oriented, less throwing himself at an enemy. It took Crow at least that long to learn, and he’s still waiting on Wolf. 

No time like the present to begin. 

**Author's Note:**

> This story is not a sequel to, but vaguely inspired by the fic [From an Unlikely Source](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18875119), in that the other one made me wonder how Cat and Wolf ever survived their earliest missions in universes without a meddling Shikako. When I say someone had sense, I probably mean the ANBU Commander and not the Hokage. 
> 
> Bird is on Wolf’s team from the [Sidestory about Snow](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7898335/2/Sunshine-Sidestories), where she and the team tragically die, and everything else I have made up on the principle that someone had to be doing the medical care. I'm sure her legacy of beating ANBU over the head until they learn a healing jutsu or two survives.


End file.
